Last month, I was supposed to speak at IKAA, an international Korean Adopteee convention. At first I was very excited to share my story, to speak on how parenting as on adoptee has impacted me, but the more I thought about the topic and the more and more anxious I became. I ended up not speaking, not because I didn’t feel that my story wasn’t relevant or because there was not interest but because I was not emotionally prepared to go into the depths of how parenting has brought so many adoptee feelings to the surface and how sometimes it’s a struggle to tell my story and not share the story of my daughter.

I see things that both of my children do, their actions, their mannerisms and their feelings and sometimes their feelings or behavior shake me to the core. I can see why one will do a certain type of behavior or make a certain comment and I am emotionally rushed back to a similar time when I was little. I am able to have more insight into the “whys” behind the behavior and be able to address it. It doesn’t it easier, sometimes it forces me to address some things from my life that I thought had already been addressed or I had forgotten about. It challenges me to look at behavior differently, to parent differently and to continue to grow.

Without my children, I would not be the person I am today. My life would be completely different and I truly don’t believe I would have addressed some of the things from my life had I not had either of my children. They will never know how much I have learned from them and I am so grateful for them.